Tom Petty, part of the fabric of American Rock Music for over forty years died last night at age 66 of a massive heart attack, leaving fans, friends, and family devastated by the sudden news. Petty had just wrapped up his 40th Anniversary tour with his band The Heartbreakers, last week at The Hollywood Bowl, which would fittingly be his final performance ever. Continue reading
While he’s been largely silent over the years, it’s hard to argue with the either quality or the diversity of Rex Brown‘s output. From Pantera’s transition from glam to thrash to pure groove, to the swampy sludge of Down and Crowbar, to borderline country music with Rebel Meets Rebel, the bassist has done it all.Continue reading
It’s not often that a side project from an acclaimed band can stand on par with said original group. After all, a lot of sidebands become the vacation parent to fans; as a stop-gap measure for artists to toss eager followers a bone in between releases. However, that is not true of Stone Sour, launched in the shadows of Slipknot, and for over fifteen years has slowly ascended to the hard rock pantheon on their own merits. In fact, on their new album Hydrograd (Roadrunner), the band has put out an album that actually surpasses a few Slipknot releases outright. Continue reading
When the lead singer of one of the biggest extreme metal bands ever announces that he’s going to write a “blues, country and folk” album, the response from fans is going to be….well extreme. Some fans will automatically write it off as a joke, but others will take the time to enjoy all aspects of the man’s musical world, and open their mind to the endless possibilities. When I first heard about Adam “Nergal” Darski‘s Me And That Man project, I was beyond excited. This is a man who truly pours his heart and soul into everything he does, and once I heard he teamed up with the legendary artist, John Porter, for this record, I knew this was going to be something special, and that’s exactly what it is. Continue reading
David Vincent is letting his love of music take him in several directions this year, and it all begins this month. Continue reading
Much of the time music comes across the desk here at Ghost Cult HQ that is very pretentious, over-wrought and generally trying too hard to fit in with a scene or a sub-genre. A lot of the music business is actually geared that way, to drive bands to conform and cling hard to that approach in an attempt to get a foothold in the ears of fans. Then there’s Scattered Hamlet: no frills rock and metal with a simple approach to kick ass much ass, take names, and just have as much fun as possible. These are the kinds of albums we only hear a few times per year, but always appreciate as reviewers. Continue reading
Nergal previously announced that his solo project, Me And That Man, would be releasing Love Is A Dog From Hell in early 2017, and Meandthatman.com now has a countdown on the homepage to January 13th.Continue reading
I first saw Liverpool’s Iron Witch around five years ago, supporting the once-mighty Kylesa and looking ready, with a little nervousness, to take on the globe. Cue the obligatory hard knocks and line-up changes…debut album A Harrowed Dawn (Secret Law Records) has seemed an age in the making but boy, has it been worth the wait.Continue reading
Devastatingly, the return of the prodigal son heralds the final statement from British Doom legends The Wounded Kings, the band recently having decided to split after twelve years of incredible creation. Visions in Bone (Spinefarm Records) is George Birch’s first album with the band since he returned to the fold two years ago, to the delight of those devotees who shunned the eerie chanteuse qualities of Sharie Neyland. Continue reading
It’s possible to believe that the boys of Virginian powerhouse Inter Arma gave themselves an impossible mountain to climb, given the superlative-exhausting greatness of 2014’s single-track opus The Cavern (Relapse Records). The hubbub generated in anticipation of new album Paradise Gallows (Relapse Records) shows the rapidly gained reputation the band’s output has gathered, and it’s an excitement that proves well-founded.
From the mournful acoustic beauty of opener ‘Nomini’, expanding to some incredibly affecting dual lead soloing which reappears alongside heartbreaking piano to devastating effect in the molten melodies of ‘Potomac’, it’s obvious that the unit’s collective desire to elicit emotion with powerful statements is still impossible to contain. TJ Childers’ gargantuan drumming is also to the fore and it is this, combined with growling riffs and Mike Paparo’s spacey, resonant roars, that governs the monstrous first shot in earnest ‘An Archer in the Emptiness’.
The echoing might carry into the following ‘Transfiguration’ and the chaotic, punishing Prog of the aptly named ‘Violent Constellations’: the quickened passages still implosive, the coruscating roars rebounding across the ages. Indeed, it seems the band now has more in common with the so-called ‘Caveman Doom’ of Conan than their Blackened roots, yet there’s a sense of grandeur and invention that the Liverpudlians can only dream of; a storytelling wonder which makes its lengthy tracks breeze by. The opening riffs of the future classic ‘Primordial Wound’, staccato yet oscillating and crushing, create a wall of sound, whilst Paparo’s fearful chants dwarf those of Charlton Heston’s Moses, hollering from atop Mount Sinai. ‘The Summer Drones’, meanwhile, still trampled by the footsteps of a colossus, sees a Jim Morrison-esque clean vocal soar through the skies on the back of monolithic, pregnant rhythms which grow with a fulminating tension, the middle section a dream of rampant Doors-like atmospheres yet crashing with the brutal euphoria of the Gods at war.
The title track begins with lazy Lounge airs, the undeniably sinister feel coated in a relaxed warmth. So the explosion is unexpected when it should be anything but, whilst still retaining torch-song sensibilities and more of that exquisite, Floydesque solo work easing the path of the pummeling body. Closer ‘Where the Earth Meets the Sky’ returns to the ethereal yet powerful beauty, a tragic Country lament given magnificence by echoing harmonies and that mesmerising strength, here sparing yet marvellously effective.
It’s evident that The Cavern set the template for Inter Arma’s future. Their Black elements almost gone, save the frequent obsidian rasps, the band nevertheless stand apart in making such epic-sounding, ferocious yet moving music; in turn reaffirming their status as one of the Metal scene’s most important outfits. That impossible mountain? Scaled, and some.
9.0/10.0
PAUL QUINN